Australia

By Paul Gregoire - Sydney Criminal Lawyers, February 16, 2017

Web Admin's Note: the IWW does not endorse or make alliances with political parties, even green or socialist parties, however, we are posting this article for information purposes due to the program of the caucus mentioned in the following article:

Left Renewal is a group of left-leaning rank and file members of the NSW Greens party that caused a stir amongst the broader Australian Greens, when they announced their presence in December last year and declared their anti-capitalist agenda

The arrival of this socialist group has posed a challenge to the mainstream Greens as a whole, as they’ve always stated that there are no factions within the party ranks. The party line has always been that they’re self-governing and their policies are based on a consensus model.

However, Left Renewal tend to differ on these points. They believe the Greens have strayed from their more radical roots. And that today, the party doesn’t formulate all of their policies democratically and some of the party leaders aren’t elected.

Calling themselves a tendency, as the term faction has negative connotations, Left Renewal base their ideology on the four pillars that the Australian Greens were founded upon. These are ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, social justice, and peace and non-violence.

By staff - Australian Council of Trade Unions - November 2016

The ACTU is primarily concerned with workers, their rights, their welfare and their future. A just and civil society is one where everyone shares in the wealth of the nation but it is also one where economic costs are equally shared.

Transitioning an industry is a massive economic and social disruption. History shows that this has often been done poorly in Australia, with workers and communities bearing the brunt of such transitions - suffering hardship, unemployment and generations of economic and social depression.

Research in the textiles, clothing and footwear (TCF) and car manufacturing industries shows, for example, that only one third of workers find equivalent full time work following their retrenchment, while one third move into lower quality jobs (lower wage, lower job status or into part-time and casual work) and one third are locked out of the labour force altogether.

International experience however shows that a transition can be done equitably, achieve positive outcomes for workers, save communities and forge new areas of industrial growth and prosperity.

Australia is currently facing one such transition in the coal-fired electricity sector. If Australia manages this transition well, the nation would have a structured and equitable approach that could apply to any industry undergoing similar change in the future.

At last year’s Paris climate conference, Australia alongside 194 countries, committed to limit global warming to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. As part of this historic agreement, unions successfully achieved recognition of the need for a ‘Just Transition’ that supports the most affected workers obtain new decent and secure jobs in a clean energy economy.

While Australia’s international obligations will require a range of complementary policies that focus on emission reduction across a number of sectors of the economy, as the largest contributor to Australia’s emissions, effective reform of the electricity sector has been identified as a key step in tackling climate change.

Download (PDF).

By Renfrey Clarke - Green Left Weekly, October 7, 2016

Efforts to halt plans for nuclear waste dumping in South Australia have made important advances in recent weeks, with environmental, trade union, indigenous and other bodies pushing for a joint opposition campaign.

At a September 16 meeting called by the peak labour movement body, SA Unions, and the Maritime Union of Australia, members of at least 14 organisations resolved to work toward forming a coordinating committee “around the common objective of preventing nuclear waste dumps being established in South Australia”.

The meeting endorsed preparations by activists for a major anti-dumps rally to be held on October 15 — the anniversary of the first British nuclear bomb test on the Australian mainland, was conducted at Emu Field in South Australia’s north-west in 1953.

SA is being targeted as the site of three large-scale repositories for radioactive materials. The federal government wants a dump for Australian-sourced low and intermediate-level waste at Barndioota, near the Flinders Ranges town of Hawker. The site is culturally important to local Aboriginal people, and the project has been met with bitter opposition from Traditional Owners.

Meanwhile, the Labor state government of Premier Jay Weatherill plans a complex of dumps and re-encapsulating facilities, as part of a massive scheme that will involve importing and storing, for payment, as much as a third of the world’s current stock of high-level spent reactor fuel. A related part of the project will be the world’s largest dump for imported intermediate-level radioactive waste.

Before heading off on September 13 to inspect nuclear waste storage facilities under construction in Finland, Weatherill gave his strongest hint yet that after a period of “consultation”, the state government by year’s end will shift its dumps scheme into a phase of active preparation.

Abandoning the project, Weatherall told the Adelaide Advertiser, looked unlikely. “There’s a red light, there’s a green light and there’s a sort of amber light of ‘proceed with caution’.”

By Anne Martinelli, et. al. - Environment Victoria - September 2016

The Latrobe Valley has a proud history of supplying the electricity that powers Victoria. But coal-burning power stations are ageing and –responding to climate change – the world is moving rapidly to cleaner energy sources. In this shifting context, the Latrobe Valley faces inevitable change. The question is: how will that change be managed?

With recent news that Hazelwood power station may close as early as in April 2017, there is a narrow window of opportunity to ensure that the Latrobe Valley prospers during the transition to a cleaner economy, rather than suffers as it did during previous economic changes.

A ‘just transition’ is a framework for managing the shift towards such new economies, with a focus on inclusive participation for those affected and a fair distribution of the costs and benefits of change.

This report explores what a just, and well-managed, transition process for the Latrobe Valley might look like. As experience from around the world has shown, when industrial change does arrive it can come very quickly, and being unprepared is costly.

In South Wales, UK, where there was little transition planning prior to the 1980s coal-mine closures, the damaging economic and social consequences have been profound and long-lasting. By contrast, Rochester, New York, which started planning its transition two decades before the city’s main employer – Kodak – collapsed, the situation has been more positive.

The first closure of one of the four large coal-burning power stations in the Latrobe Valley could be as early as 2017, and the rest could quickly follow. Tangible action and funding to develop an alternative economic future is required now.

For the Latrobe Valley to successfully achieve a just transition, two equally important processes must occur: (1) an orderly and planned transition away from coal; and (2) a collaborative and inclusive transition towards a sustainable local economy.

Read the Report (Link).

By Joseph Scales - New Matilda, September 27, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

"We have a rendezvous with humanity." With that statement, the International Trade Union Confederation Climate Summit, ‘No Jobs on a Dead Planet!’ was opened in Paris, France last week. 

The Summit was the most significant trade union climate change meeting in history, held as a precursor to the COP21 Paris talks scheduled for December.

Climate Change is recognised and established. Even climate deniers like our former Prime Minister Tony Abbott are forced to at least publicly accept the legitimacy of the science.

The interconnected market pressures of a changing economy – particularly in a once manufacturing-intensive nation like Australia – means industrial change is coming, whether we like it or not.

What workers, unions and communities must decide is: are we part of that change or not? Business and capital will certainly be keeping their eye out for the best deal on their bottom line.

By Andrea Bunting - Green Left Weekly, June 20, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The federal government is keen to cut the age pension. Its latest proposal to double the taper rate on the assets test has been supported by the Greens on the basis that this measure will reduce government support to those with significant wealth.

The Greens also hoped that by supporting these pension cuts, the government would rein in tax concessions on superannuation. However, the government has since publicly ruled out any superannuation changes.

So the deal does not reduce benefits given to the rich. It reduces benefits to those in the middle, while providing a small benefit — about $15 per week — to pensioners with modest assets. The poorest pensioners receive nothing extra.

National Seniors Australia has expressed concern that these changes will reduce pensions, while not addressing superannuation tax concessions.

The government provides support for people’s retirement through the age pension and through tax concessions on superannuation. The Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) and Mercer have modelled the total lifetime government support for retirement incomes received by those on different levels of income.

Their modelling found that the bottom 10% of earners average about $400,000 in government retirement support over their lifetime. Meanwhile, the top 10% of earners average about $489,000. This group doesn’t even get the age pension.

But the greatest government largesse is reserved for those in the top 1% income range. The modelling showed that the richest 1% receive on average around $630,000 of lifetime government support. Under the new law, lifetime support for some middle income earners has now been slashed to $214,000.

By David Spratt - Climate Action Moreland, June 2015

Hazelwood Power Station (HPS) was built between 1964 and 1971, and comprises 1542 megawatt (MW) of capacity over eight generators. It was privatised by the Victorian Liberal Party Kennett government in 1996 for $2.35 billion.If HPS had stayed in public hands, it would likely have been decommissioned in 2005, but in 2004 the Bracks Labor government extended its operations till 2031, allowing Hazelwood to move a road and a river to access 43 million tonnes of brown coal deposits in a realignment of the mining licence boundaries. The owners have a 30-year mining licence due for renewal in 2026.HPS and the land on which it operates are owned by the Hazelwood Power Partnership. Since 7 June 2013, the four partners have been subsidiaries of International Power (Australia) Holdings Pty Ltd. This company is in turn jointly owned by subsidiaries of Engie (formerly GDF Suez SA) (72 per cent ownership) and Mitsui & Co Ltd (28 per cent ownership). Engie is a global energy company with corporate headquarters in France. Mitsui & Co Ltd is a global trading company with corporate headquarters in Japan.Currently HPS produces more than 10,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) of energy annually and is supplied with up to 18 million tonnes of coal each year from the adjacent Hazelwood mine, releasing around 16 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. Today HPS provides approximately 21 per cent of Victoria’s baseline electricity supply.

The Victorian Government has expressed a desire (though it does not yet have a policy) for a significant expansion of renewable energy in Victoria. This has widespread community support and must be done quickly and at a large scale because climate change is already dangerous. Scientists warn that two degrees Celsius of warming could occur in just two decades, so preserving a safe climate and a healthy future requires rapid de-carbonisation.

Expanding renewable energy requires coal-generating capacity to be removed from the market because oversupply is crowding out and preventing new investment. The Australian energy market operator says there are about eight gigawatts of surplus generating capacity across the national market, equivalent to five Hazelwood power stations. This includes up to 2.2 gigawatts of brown coal generation that is no longer required in Victoria in 2015, which is greater than Hazelwood’s capacity. Power companies have been lobbying government for capacity to be reduced, and senior Victorian energy department bureaucrats are aware of the need to close coal power stations in order to roll out renewables.

The Victorian Government has committed to being a leader on climate change. Closing down excess coal generation is a key test of the government’s climate credentials. Coal-fired power stations are the world’s largest source of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. Victoria cannot make the necessary emissions reductions without addressing the operations of Hazelwood and/or Yallourn power stations.

Hazelwood power station is old, unsafe and dirty. Based on emissions intensity, it is the third-dirtiest coal power station in the world and the dirtiest in Australia, releasing around 16 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, almost three per cent of total Australian greenhouse emissions. The Hazelwood majority owner, Engie (formerly GDF Suez), owns the third-most polluting coal-power station fleet in the world. The full – health and carbon pollution – social costs of Hazelwood totalling $900 million per year are borne by the community, rather than the plant’s owners.

A steady stream of local jobs can be created in the Latrobe Valley with the rehabilitation of mines and decommissioning of plant, which will require a significant workforce stretching well over a decade. The Latrobe Valley needs a strong jobs package and an economic transition plan and new industries because the move from coal to clean wind and solar renewable energy is now both urgent and inevitable.

Hazelwood power station and mine are a health hazard to local residents, exemplified by the autumn 2014 mine fire. The owners of Hazelwood have abused their social licence and forfeited the right to profit from a power station that is now a major health hazard – both to local people and to all peoples who face the uncertainties of living in a hotter and more extreme climate.

In July 2010, the Victorian Labor government promised to start shutting Hazelwood and passed climate legislation providing the reserve power to regulate emissions from existing brown coal-fired generators. Restoring the government’s capacity to regulate emissions would be complementary to actions being taken by other governments, including in the United States and Europe.

Read the report (PDF).